Environmental Health Solutions

Publisher Summary This chapter presents various environmental health solutions. The term environmental health refers to the science, techniques, and professional practice involved in protecting people from adverse health effects caused by exposure to their surroundings. Some of the factors, which can have adverse health effects on humans, include biological environmental agents, which causes infection; vectors, which transmit agents; chemical environmental agents; toxins; and physical environmental agents. The US federal capability in protecting the environmental quality has been greatly enhanced during the past 40 years, with the creation of certain agencies and reorganization of others. These actions allowed the government to begin in a substantial and meaningful way to meet the challenges to public health posed by new hazards in the chemical and physical environments. The development of specialized laboratory analyses also helped in environmental and biological monitoring required to maintain health. Specialized lawyers, engineers, chemists, physicists, and other professionals all play key roles in environmental health. Recently, the preventive field of environmental toxicology has drawn the interest of clinical specialists in medical toxicology, who usually deal one-on-one with poisoned patients in the clinical encounter. The challenge of the occupational environment also received significant new federal attention in the early 1970s. Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970, which created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) within the US Department of Labor. To provide a scientific basis for the regulatory work of OSHA, the OSH Act also called for the creation of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Although, NIOSH is not a regulatory agency, its scientists enhance worker safety and health by conducting industry-wide studies to assess workplace hazards, by going into the field to investigate directly any specific hazards reported to it by workers, unions, or management, and by conducting relevant basic scientific research.